Chase

by Francine Pascal

  “I’m here to tell you that the CIA has decided to give you a choice,” Gaia said slowly, deliberately. Tatiana seethed at her superior tone but refused to let slip the mask of bored defiance on her face. “If you tell me where my father is, they will let you join your mother in confinement,” Gaia continued. “If you don’t tell me, they’re going to throw you in solitary.”

  Tatiana’s eyes burned with instant tears. Her mother. She would get to be with her mother. She longed with every inch of her being to see Natasha again. It was all that mattered. It was all she had left. She ducked her chin so that Gaia wouldn’t be looking right into her eyes when the first tear fell.

  “Think about it, Tatiana,” Gaia continued. “Solitary means a room smaller than this one—darker than this one. All alone. For as long as you decide to remain silent.”

  Oh God, I can’t do this, Tatiana thought, her mind racing as she stared at the floor. What if I tell them everything and go to my mother and she turns her back on me? She’ll know I failed. I could never handle that.

  But she also wouldn’t be able to handle solitary. She’d hardly been able to handle being alone for the last few days. She’d go crazy if they locked her up by herself. She’d go mad.

  “Well?” Gaia said. “What do you say?”

  Tatiana looked up at her, vision blurred, the words on the very tip of her tongue. All she had to do was say it and she’d be in her mother’s arms again. All she had to do was talk.

  But then she saw the shame and disappointment that would be in her mother’s eyes. She saw her mother turning away as she ran to her. And the pain of that simple image was excruciating.

  Tatiana turned her profile to Gaia and squeezed her eyes shut. She wouldn’t tell. Not now. Not yet. She had to think. And right now she was too tired, too confused. She needed some time to process everything.

  “Fine,” Gaia spat, shoving the stool away from her. “You have twenty-four hours to make your decision.”

  The door swung open again as Gaia approached it, and Tatiana felt her glare at her one last time. Then she stepped out, and the door swung shut behind her. The resounding clang sounded with the finality of death. Finally Tatiana tipped her head forward and gave way to silent tears.

  Hyperawake

  THE MOMENT GAIA WALKED INTO the fourth-floor office at the brownstone, Oliver turned away from his computer and looked at her with a never-before-seen excitement in his light eyes. Against her will, Gaia’s heart leapt crazily. Even after everything she’d been through that day—the good-bye with Ed, the fight, the hospital, the one-on-one with Tatiana, she was suddenly hyperawake.

  “What is it?” she asked, dropping her stuff on the floor and crossing the room. She stood at his side and squeezed her arms over her chest. “What’s going on?”

  “We’ve got him,” Oliver said, smiling up at her. “We’ve found your father.”

  Inside, Gaia jumped up and down . . . she yelped and hugged Oliver, tackling him to the ground . . . she did cartwheels and somersaults and danced a jig worthy of Riverdance. Outside, she remained the picture of intense concentration.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “He’s in Siberia . . . in a hospital there,” Oliver said, sliding a few sheets of paper out of a large manila envelope. He handed over a glossy black-and-white photo of her father in a hospital bed, either sleeping or unconscious. His face was covered with a few days’ beard. As expected, he did look exactly like Oliver had when she’d first seen him in the hospital. Lying on top of the blanket that covered his legs was a copy of a Russian newspaper, the date as clear as day in the top-right corner. The picture had been taken two days ago.

  Gaia felt her mouth go dry as her eyes traveled to the medical monitors to the right of her father’s bed. They were alight with lines and squiggles and numbers. Her father was alive. Or was two days ago.

  “Thank you,” Gaia said under her breath. “You found him. . . . Thank you.”

  Oliver smiled slightly and handed over another sheet of paper. “This is the address of the hospital,” he said. “You’ll have to fly to Minsk.”

  “Great,” Gaia said, turning for the door. “I’m gone.”

  “No!”

  Oliver stood up from his chair, scraping it back so fast, it fell over and clattered to the floor. Gaia stopped short and closed her eyes. Nothing was going to keep her from leaving right this very second. How could he even suggest otherwise?

  “Gaia, the second you book that ticket, there are going to be hundreds of agents on your tail,” Oliver said, each of his words hitting her back like tiny daggers. “I promise you, you will never make it to Russia alive. Never.”

  “Well, then what am I supposed to do?” Gaia demanded, whirling around again, clutching the papers and the photograph in her hands. “Why give me this information if you expect me to do nothing?”

  Oliver stepped over to her, reached out, and placed his hands on her shoulders. “I expect you to wait,” he said, eliciting an eye roll and a sigh from Gaia. “Just two days. In two days I can get you a legitimate passport with a new name for you to travel under. I can have a whole history made up for the new you in case anyone decides to check.”

  He squeezed her shoulders, and Gaia looked down. She knew that he was right—that this was the only logical way to do things. But how could she? How could she wait two whole days?

  “And I can have the same thing done for myself,” Oliver continued.

  Gaia raised her chin and looked into his eyes, her pulse thumping in her ears–her heart a tangled mess of conflicting emotions. Had he really just said what she thought he’d said?

  “I’m coming with you,” he added firmly. “You’re not going anywhere alone. Not anymore.”

  GAIA

  Two days.

  Forty-eight hours.

  Two thousand, eight hundred and eighty minutes.

  One hundred seventy-two thousand, eight hundred seconds.

  And I’ll be on my way to find my father. And this time I’m bringing him home. For good.

  here is a sneak peek of Fearless #29: LUST

  GAIA

  I guess the only time most people think about blood is when it’s gushing out of their veins and they need to find a Band–Aid–or an emergency room–to keep it from messing up the white carpet. But I’m thinking about it a lot lately. Little red platelets and big white corpuscles rushing through everyone’s veins. Keeping us alive as long as it stays on its dark little course–but signaling weakness or death when it wanders off the path, out into the light, to spill on the ground.

  Funny thing about blood–it also connects people. There it is, hidden inside your skin, yet it manages to call out to other blood, related blood, inside someone else’s skin. You might have nothing else in common, but that red stuff really is thicker than water. There’s nobody in the world I should have more cause to hate than Oliver. Or should I say, Loki. He has engineered more destruction–starting with my own mother, the woman who created my own blood–than anyone else in my life. So a bout of postcoma confusion has forced his pre-Loki, kinder and gentler Oliver personality to emerge, and suddenly he regrets his evil ways.

  At best, I should feel indifferent toward him. But because we share blood, I find myself drawn to him. I find myself willing to try to trust him–this new, remorseful Oliver–because our DNA matches up so nicely.

  Am I just a sucker? A girl so lonely she’ll cling to any semblance of a family connection? Or is this an instinct, speaking through the layers of primordial history, telling me the tide has turned for Oliver?

  Let’s hope it’s the latter.

  Let’s hope it’s the blood that’s letting me forgive him. Anyone else would get nothing from me but my everlasting hate. Like Natasha and Tatiana. The mother-daughter team from the third ring of hell. A couple of lying, conniving females who took my dad from me and almost had me convinced he was dead. But he can’t be dead. My blood would tell me if he was. They’re still going to pay, though. Maybe wi
th their own blood. If I get half a chance, you can bet that’ll be the case.

  But that’s so not a priority. What’s important now–what’s got to happen before anything else–is I’ve got to find my dad. My real blood link. Even closer to me than Oliver. He’s the one I owe my loyalty to. And I’m going to find him. Come hell or high water, the blood pumping in my veins is going to give me the strength to reach around the globe and find him. You can bet on that.

  unfamiliar terrain

  She had to remember to keep her distance this time—within her heart and out in the world.

  Dangerously Accurate

  GAIA SAT SLUMPED IN AN UNFORGIVING wood-and-metal chair as she cycled through the seven local stations one more time, looking for something that would amuse her and Jake in his hospital room. The television, which looked about twenty years old, was bolted to the ceiling and made a disconcerting fuzzy noise whenever a channel was changed, like the cchk sound at the beginning and end of a walkie-talkie broadcast. The static was only marginally less interesting than daytime TV.

  “Is this Judge Judy?” Gaia wanted to know.

  “No, that’s a different show,” Jake said, pointing to the screen. “It looks like a judge show, but then they bring in therapists and it turns into a corny lovefest where everybody’s hugging and crying, even though tomorrow they’re going to go back to throwing chairs at each other.”

  “You need better health insurance. This no-cable thing is a problem.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” Jake asked again. Gaia glared at him. Forcing herself to ignore the way his black hair fell on his forehead just right, even after a full twenty-four hours of lying in a hospital bed. And the way his green eyes sparkled as he asked the question he knew would annoy her. And the muscles she could see even through the loose hospital gown he wore. If he got out of bed, she’d get a prime view of his butt. She forced herself to ignore that, too.

  “Didn’t I already sidestep that question?” she wanted to know.

  “Yeah, that’s why I have to ask it again. I’m in a weakened state. I’d think you’d be more considerate—it’s tiring, all this verbal tangoing, you know.”

  “Whatever. I skipped again,” she admitted. “I can’t sit around in school. I’m too agitated.”

  “What? Because of this?” Jake shrugged. Gaia tried not to think about the fact that he’d been shot when he’d been ambushed along with her. Because of her. So what if it turned out to be nothing more than a flesh wound? He was hurt because he’d gotten in the way of people who were after Gaia. And that made her feel ill.

  He wasn’t the first person to end up lying on a metal cot with a tube in his arm because of her. And she felt a leaden certainty that he wouldn’t be the last.

  “No, not because of that,” she said sheepishly, glancing at the bandages enveloping his powerful shoulder. “You know why.”

  “Because you’re worried about those visas,” he said, taking the remote from her hand and switching the TV off. “You’re going to make yourself crazy, you know.”

  “Oh, I’m already there, so there’s nothing to worry about,” she told him.

  “Yeah, but . . . I mean, you have to wait a couple days anyway, right? Why can’t you just go to school and avoid getting in trouble?”

  Gaia blinked at him. “What are you, a boy scout?” she asked.

  Jake laughed. “No, I’m just saying you could pass the time at school as easily as you can pass it sitting here.”

  Gaia knew he was right. She didn’t know why she had such an aversion to school. Maybe it was because she already knew everything that was being droned about at the front of the classroom. Her dad—her dad and her mom, actually—had made sure of that, making her take advantage of her sharp intellect from the moment she could read. Maybe she just hated being fenced in. Maybe she was worried that another strike would hurt the students around her. Or maybe she just wanted to be here, at the hospital, with Jake.

  “Oh, why start behaving now,” she mustered. “It would just confuse everyone.”

  “You know what I think?” Jake gave her a sidelong look.

  “No, in fact, I don’t possess that particular skill,” Gaia responded dryly.

  “I think you like the drama,” he said with a tiny nod. “You like getting the principal all pissed off at you and driving your teachers up the wall. Because you know you can pull a passing grade out of your ass, and you like the challenge.”

  “Oh, really. Is that what you think?”

  “Yeah. Plus, now that I know how crazy your life has been, it makes even more sense. You’d hate to feel settled and centered in any part of your life, wouldn’t you? That would just be too unfamiliar to stand.” Jake was enjoying this, Gaia could see that. She was acting nonchalant, but inside she was squirming with discomfort under the probing spotlight of this much attention. Not to mention that his theory sounded dangerously accurate.

  “Hey, I have a great idea, Jake. Why don’t you get out of my head and back into your hospital bed? I think it’s time for your lower G.I. series.”

  “Oh, hoooo!” Jake laughed at the sharp tone in Gaia’s voice. “Man, are you easy to tease!”

  “You’re annoying,” Gaia told him. “I’m going to request a male nurse for your next sponge bath.”

  Just then the door clunked open and Jake’s father entered the room, along with a stout old woman. Gaia stood up as if she’d been caught pulling the wings off a fly. Mr. Montone didn’t know why Jake had been ambushed—they couldn’t know for sure that it was Gaia’s fault—but Gaia was sure he’d still be angry at her. Surely he’d figure it couldn’t be a coincidence that the first time his golden boy had gotten shot, it had been when he was with his mysterious new friend.

  “Gaia!” Mr. Montone came straight for her and gave her a . . . hug? Gaia’s nerve endings did a little confused dance—they’d been expecting a slap, or at least the cold shoulder.

  “Thank you for getting Jake to the hospital,” Mr. Montone said. “When I heard he was with you, I was so glad—that he had a friend so close, I mean. Ma, this is Jake’s friend Gaia. The one who got him to the hospital.”

  “You do so good!” the old woman said, reaching up to grab Gaia by the cheeks and give her an affectionate—and powerful—squeeze.

  “A lot of girls your age are somewhat—flighty,” Mr. Montone added. “Might have panicked and run home.”

  “Oh no,” Gaia stammered. “I mean, I didn’t really—” Shut up and quit while you’re ahead, she muttered internally. For once someone thinks you did something right. You’d better enjoy it.

  “Dad, Nonna, what are you guys doing here?” Jake asked. “Is something wrong?”

  The door opened again. A nervous-looking young doctor in a white coat shuffled in, looking like he’d rather be dealing with an obstructed bowel.

  “Excuse me. I understand you want to take Jake home?” he asked, with all the authority of a kid who’d missed his curfew.

  “How to put this nicely?” Jake’s grandmother said. “It’s not so much that we want to take him home. We gonna take him home.”

  The doctor looked to Jake’s dad for help, but he just shrugged and started packing Jake’s things into a duffel bag.

  “Mrs. Montone, I really must tell you, we’d prefer it if we could watch Jake for one more night.”

  “Watch him what, starve to death because of your hospital food? I need to get some braciola into him before he fades to nothing.”

  “We’d just like to observe . . . Oh, fine,” the doctor said resignedly.

  “Good man,” Mr. Montone said, patting him on the back. “Don’t worry, I can watch him. I know what to look for—infection, gangrene. I work at Mount Sinai, you know.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It was amazing. Mr. Montone looked like an older Jake, but with salt-and-pepper hair, a bit of a belly, and in corduroys and a tweed jacket. He peered at Jake over his half-glasses and said, “You. Up.”

  “Ga
ia, do you mind?” Jake asked.

  “What? Oh!” Gaia got flustered. “I’ll wait in the hall.” She caught a glimpse of him sitting up and shifting over in bed and thought of his butt again.

  Quit that, she thought, shutting the door behind her. Immediately she realized she should have just made her excuses and left. Of course, she could still just leave, but she hadn’t said good-bye, and Jake’s family would think she was weird. But if she barged back in now, she might catch him in a compromised state, and that would be too embarrassing for words.

  And why do you care what Jake’s family thinks? she asked herself.

  I don’t, she answered. Who cares? Just because his father fed me the best homemade dinner I’ve had since I was a kid and welcomed me into his home. And just because his son is basically my only friend. I don’t give a hoot what they think of me. But still she stood in the hallway, shifting her weight from one foot to the other with nervous energy, until they came back out.

  Jake was fully clothed, except that he hadn’t managed to get a T-shirt over his bandages, so his loose flannel button-down shirt fell open at the chest. His father and grandmother followed behind him, arguing over which one should carry the duffel bag.

  “Gimme that. You’ve got the bad back,” his grandmother ordered.

  “I’ve got it. It’s not heavy,” his dad said.

  “Not heavy till you’re in bed and need a heat-wrap. Come on, give.”

  Jake slowed down so they had to pass him, then let the elevator door close without him.

  “See you downstairs,” he called out as his grandmother tried to hit the door-open button and failed. “The hospital would have been some welcome peace and quiet,” he said to Gaia, grinning.

  “I think they’re great,” she said.